Government Restrictions On Website Access?

[z9999]

I'm an Ipstar user as it is the only offering available where I live. I paid the extra 1000 baht per year for a fixed IP address after encountering problems at the Internet Cafe I had previously been using due to frequently changing IP address which triggered the owner to power cycle his modem/router and just make things worse each time.

After getting the satellite set up with my sons computer, who doesn't use the internet, but has more storage space than my notebook, I found myself often moving the LAN connection between the computers so I went and bought a Linksys router. Not having any previous personal experience with routers I found it surprisingly easy to get to work but questioned if I was using it properly. I started Googling around for information and came across a website, portforward.com, which offered lots of information, but I noticed that it displayed my IP address different from what I was told it was by the ISP, JI-net. This got me to searching further and eventually I determined that I was behind a Proxy, and the IP address in question was that of the Proxy. Knowing even less about Proxies I searched further and found another website that confirmed that I was using a proxy and identified both the Proxy IP address and my fixed IP address, but also noted that a Proxy could be an asset, but in my case it was not. This got me to searching for more information and I began to encounter a problem whan trying to access information. Instead of displaying the website I wished to view I was sent to a webpage www.mict.go.th/ci/block.html which told me I could not access that site. As the message was totally in Thai I could not determine why, but it in turn directed me to another site ict.cyberclean.org, which also was in Thai and much wordier so I gave up.

In the case above the key for the information I was trying to retrive was "Linksys Firewall Router" which I cannot understand why I would be blocked from viewing it. In a round about way I viewed the site and found that it also has information pertaining to anonomous browsing which perhaps is why the site is blocked? Coming from the U.S. it was a little upsetting to encounter such a situation as I have never encountered such previously. It also got me to wondering just how much more information may be withheld in the future.

It seems that Governments everywhere are impairing or intruding on the privacy of the masses. As for absolutely unbreakable encryption, if it ever gets to become a necessity, it exists and has for many years. I just hope I don't have to eventually resort to such methods. For the record, I'm not looking for any information which should be considered sensitive or immoral to this or any government, I just want to put my router to proper use. And I have found essentially all the information I needed elsewhere, but still I wonder what what considered to be information that I should not have been privy to at the website in question.

If anyone should find time to read this lengthy post I would be interested in your views on the subject. I did stay under the 102400 character length at least, (3142 characters)

[clokwise]

Welcome to Thailand, Z, please leave your shoes and common sense here at the door.

Do a search of the forums here for more info, there has been a fair amount of discussion about this topic. Be aware that even the moderators of this forum fear being blocked or shutdown by the govt when we start to get more detailed about "solutions", so certain threads have been deleted.

Recently, most external free proxies, and encrypted proxy sites such as TOR, have been blocked by the police. The ONLY solution I've found so far to bypass the blocks is via an encrypted tunnel of some sort. There are free options available, you may need to find an un-blocked mirror site to download the software you need. Or, as others have pointed out, use LINUX, which offers you other options.